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A friend of mine sent this in an email earlier when we were discussing the same thing...

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Of course in adapting the book to TV, they have to tone things down a bit. In the TV version, the mord sith are women dressed in skin tight leather who walk by kittens without petting them…. (thereby showing their deranged and ruthless nature)

The first two are very good - the rest are good, but hit and miss - and sometimes to the point of annoying.

Recently started Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy, one of my guilty pleasures I guess. Sometimes Clancy can be a lot of fun to ready, and he does thrillers with high tech, military and special forces elements better than anyone.

I guess he's getting older and crankier, though, or else he just doesn't know who to make into a plausible villain since the fall of the USSR, because Rainbow Six treats environmentalists as being the most evil and inhuman bad-guys possible. The basic thrust of the book is that some environmentalists decide that human beings are just too tough on the planet, and almost every one deserves to be wiped-out. Environmentalism is treated as the most deranged, anti-business, anti-social kind of sociopathic craziness possible. I'm not exactly a Greenpeace or Sierra Club member, but this still kind of bugs me.

I like to play audiobooks while I'm working in the office, (no time to sit & read actual books). I'm just finishing up with the entire Dark Tower series by Stephen King, (I read all of them years ago, but listening to them again was a great adventure), & I'm going to start on Lord of the Rings next, (yay, can't wait)!

Environmentalism is treated as the most deranged, anti-business, anti-social kind of sociopathic craziness possible. I'm not exactly a Greenpeace or Sierra Club member, but this still kind of bugs me.

I couldn't agree more. I am a pretty politically conservative person, but I have always considered myself an environmentalist. I come from a family of ranchers/farmers who are very environmentally focused. After all, their living comes from the environment. I feel that the term environmentalist has been hijacked, so to speak, by some radicals which makes the rest of us a little uncomfortable with the label. We have to protect what we have and should do so passionately, but extremism seldom helps win people over. Just my $.02 . Harry

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A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kickboxing.

I read a ton these days, though mostly it's horror or other "dark fiction". I've never been able to get into much non-fiction, I guess I read mostly for entertainment purposes, which is what dictates my lit choices. Sci-Fi and Fantasy aren't my thing, either. I've read some and enjoyed it, but these days I tend to want thrills and chills.

Recent books I enjoyed:

Bret Easton Ellis-Lunar Park. Great story and a bit of a different yard than he tends to write. Made me feel something at the end. Good.

Jack Ketchum-Hide and Seek. Not his best story by any means, but again-it made me feel something at the end. Glad this one's back in print.

I've just started Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, based on Brian Bieniowski's recommendation of that author earlier in this thread (actually right at the time of that recommendation I went to Powell's Books and grabbed a few of his books but I'm just getting around to this one), and I can already tell it's something special. I'm not one of those who think science fiction is just lightweight, but I think it's rare to read writing in this genre that is so sensitive and restrained when it comes to the human scale stuff. At the same time, the broader conceptual aspects of the story are really fantastic as well, and I can't wait to read more.

Recently started Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy, one of my guilty pleasures I guess. Sometimes Clancy can be a lot of fun to ready, and he does thrillers with high tech, military and special forces elements better than anyone.

I guess he's getting older and crankier, though, or else he just doesn't know who to make into a plausible villain since the fall of the USSR, because Rainbow Six treats environmentalists as being the most evil and inhuman bad-guys possible. The basic thrust of the book is that some environmentalists decide that human beings are just too tough on the planet, and almost every one deserves to be wiped-out. Environmentalism is treated as the most deranged, anti-business, anti-social kind of sociopathic craziness possible. I'm not exactly a Greenpeace or Sierra Club member, but this still kind of bugs me.

I was heavily involved in animal rights and other similar environmental based in the past - only just avoided a prison sentence so I can understand the direction that takes people to those sort of extreme feelings, was a little nihilistic myself for some time. The experiences of seeing people attacked by the more powerful vested interests and the police do nothing only helped. Also recently worked in child protection which was another side of the underbelly of human cruelty on defenceless children.

It's a delicate thing I think as it is often the caring side of someone that gets them invoilved in those sorts of activities and beliefs - and it is how that side of them gets affected by the experiences that seems to affect how cynical or dark they become. There was a time when i too thought the human race was a cancer on the Earth and sometimes I still wonder what the hell we are doing to each other and the planet - but I believe humanity has enormous, if not infinite potential for good and that there are more acts of love, nurturing and creativity than cruelty, hate and destruction.

The Terror - Dan SimmonsI find this to be an incredible idea/storyline and a remarkable setting for the novel but I'm pretty much let down by it now and I'm mid way through it. It's just kind of slow and very little seems to be happening. And none of the more terrifying moments in the novel have registered with me psychologically at all. It's funny, before I read this I picked up Song of Kali and loved it from start to finish. That one has a much more urgent tone than this one.

Winter World - Bernd HeinrichNon Fiction. About the changes in animal behavior when adapting to winter weather. Just started it so I can't go into details.

All right, this is a young adult novel. But it's the first book--and more to the point, the first fantasy novel--that has completely hooked me in ages. The young hero is the son of Greek God and he gets mixed up in a little rivalry between Zeus and Dad. To be safe he's sent to a camp where "half-bloods"--the spawn of mortals and gods--are basically hidden from the unpleasant attentions of all sorts of nasty beasties. Naturally our hero is sent on a major quest...

This one is the first of a (now) four-book series. The writing is crisp and smart, and even if the "camp for special kids" smacks a wee bit of Hogwart's, this is a truly original series. Riordan's got me hooked.

Book 5 of R.A. Salvatore's 6-part War of the Spider Queen series, Annihilation.

Then there is Lisa Smedman's 3-volume follow-up to that. Afterward, Salvatore's, The Orc King, which is the first of another trilogy. Ugh. I'm enjoying these books, but what is it about these multi-volume opuses, that keeps sucking me into a months-long reading commitment?

Oh, yeah, then there's the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian to get back to. I left off at book 9 in that series; only 10 more to go...

Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of DeathHalf way through and its an interesting historical novel set primarily in medieval Cambridge, England.Its intelligent and informative about the time, and is a good murder mystery.

I just started Spin as well based on the recommendations of Brian & Mike. I am really looking forward to it.

I also just finished a book called "The Traveler" by John Twelve Hawks. I bought with no thought or research. I was leaving Border's, stuck my head in the sci fi section saw it & bought it. It was just okay.

As I was approaching the end of the book I started to realize that there was no way it was going to resolve everything in time. Sure enough I get to the end & its says "The End of Book One of the Fourth Realm". Crap! What a freakin' waste. The book wasn't good enough to make me want to read the next ones. And it sure doesn't work as a stand alone novel. If I had known it was the first in a series I may not have bought it. Nowhere on the book does it indicate that it's part of a series. I wouldn't have minded so much if the story just had some sort of resolution. I guess that's what I get for an impulse buy.

g.@.b.

“…the most successful organizations of the Information Age operate not as controlledcollections of human resources but as dynamic communities of free people. And in order tomobilize these communities, leaders must know how to lead without power, because freepeople follow willingly – or not at all.”

I've always found Stephen King gratifying in a simple, direct, natural-storyteller sort of way, and his best work can really get into your head. This series seems to me to differ somewhat from most of his work, being a bit more abstract or "arty" I guess. Quite enjoyable so far.